Manchester City to review Roberto Mancini's position at end of season

Roberto Mancini's reign as Manchester City manager will be reviewed at the end of the season, with sources at Eastlands unable to confirm he will still be in place next season.

The Italian enters a defining week on Monday night with the derby at Manchester United followed by Sunday's FA Cup semi-final with Chelsea.

Mancini was given a five-year contract last summer to indicate the faith Sheikh Mansour has in him and City favour stability, so there is no sense that the owner will be panicked into a decision.

However, with City 15 points behind United in a disappointing championship defence and the failure to reach the Champions League knockout stages for a second successive year – the team finished bottom of their group – there remains doubt over Mancini's position.

The Italian will face an end-of-season review in Abu Dhabi, which is to be led by Khaldoon al-Mubarak, the chairman, and include Ferran Soriano, the chief executive, and the director of football, Txiki Begiristain. If United beat City on Monday evening , and Mancini's side are then knocked out of the Cup, the Italian's situation would be weakened.

There will be investment in players this summer, as the club strive to avert the mistakes of last year when none of their first-choice targets was landed. Mancini is sure that if those players had been bought – they include Robin van Persie, who instead moved to United – City would have enjoyed more success. Of the prospect of strengthening this summer, Mancini said: "I am sure we can do well this year, that we can do a good job in the market."

That suggests Mancini is confident he will remain in place. Yet with Begiristain and Soriano forming a new power base, there is a desire to ensure their first summer in charge of transfer policy involves the right manager, especially as Mancini hinted at the end of last week there could be a sizeable outlay.

"I don't know how much money we can spend," Mancini said. "I don't know this. But United in the past did spend a lot to buy important players. Now they don't need to spend every year, £100m. United are a top team, they just need to buy one top player every year because they are strong. For us it is different, we need to do it this way and may be in three or four years we need only buy one player in the summer because we have a strong team."